Embracing God's Love: Be a Messenger of Hope

"Malachi Malachi This name means my messenger That's very interesting because throughout the book of Malachi you'll see that he's kind of hung up with this responsibility being a messenger of God He calls Levi from the tribe of Levi a messenger Throughout the book of uh of Malachi you'll also see him talk about the coming preparer for the Messiah Elijah as we know him He calls him a a messenger and then he calls the coming Messiah uh the messenger of the new covenant." [00:00:30]

"Throughout the book of Malachi you'll also see him talk about the coming preparer for the Messiah Elijah as we know him He calls him a a messenger and then he calls the coming Messiah uh the messenger of the new covenant Uh and and depending on what Bible translation you have you have when we begin to read verses one we're going to read verses 1 through5 Malachi chapter one you'll see him depending on what translation it starts with um he has a burden." [00:00:52]

"This responsibility of being a messenger is huge for him And so God gives him seven messages and and very distinct to the book of Malachi there's seven conversations you could say that God has with the people of Israel You can say they're more of a dialogue because every time God makes a declaration there's like a response from the nation and then there's a response from God that kind of settles that topic You can also say the matter of God." [00:01:24]

"Malachi 1:es 1-5 says 'This is the message that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi.' By the way I should say I'm reading the NLT I've met some of you um and you many of you have a a studious approach to the word of God You may have your favorite Bible translation It's going to sound a little different but I I like to read from the MLT translation Verse two I have always loved you says the Lord But you retort really how have you loved us." [00:02:09]

"The Lord replies this is how I showed my love for you I loved your ancestor Jacob but I rejected his brother Esau and devastated his hill country I turned Esau's inheritance into a desert for jackals Esau's descendants in Edom may say 'We have been shattered but we will rebuild these ruins.' But the Lord of heaven's armies replies 'They may try to rebuild but I will demolish them again.' The country will be known as the land of wickedness and their people will be called the people with whom the Lord is forever angry." [00:02:42]

"When you see the destruction for yourselves you will say 'Truly the Lord's greatness reaches far beyond Israel's borders.' In a nutshell what God is saying here I love you You don't believe that but I I'll I'll remind you of your history You know uh Esau harassed Jacob And you know what i showed favor to Jacob I didn't show favor to Esau So we're going to look at three main things in today's message And I purposely want to try to condense my sermons to make it more more succinct and more short because we're a short a small church." [00:03:22]

"The first thing that we're going to share with you today is to believe that God loves you Here's here's God telling Israel 'I really love you.' And they're like 'Really?' Now they were going through um several troubles and you'll see that for the rest of Malachi as we continue So they were going through several troubles and they didn't see the love of God And that's a reminder for us because if God loves us and we know he does right john 3:16 says 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.'" [00:04:35]

"That's one of the most uh cornest scriptures in the Bible You see God's love throughout the whole book and how he treats Israel He saved them from Egypt you know he provided for them That's another way that God shows his love for us And yet they didn't believe him So let me challenge you today Maybe you're struggling and doubting about God's love Maybe maybe you got there with God because maybe that's how you encountered your relationship with your mother and father Maybe there's something about that relationship that has hindered a real love." [00:05:05]

"A real love relationship a real deep relationship with them So that kind of transfers sometimes with our relationship with God We have a hard time trusting and loving a God that says he loves us when we didn't really have that role model for us or those examples for us But I'm here to remind you that we can trust God's word that he loves us Look at your history You're still alive today this morning because of God's love You're here in this room breathing because of God's love and your life could have been so much different." [00:05:45]

"God made it so that you were safe you were here you're breathing you're alive Um just a few weeks ago I have had it set up at the church that I came from Jay was wondering where you know about my story I can't sell everything and we kind of missed it the last few weeks but part of my story is that I came from a different church Obviously before coming here I was on a staff on staff for the church I was the pastor of counseling and pastor of care and life changed and I had set up a teenager who had a remarkable story." [00:06:22]

"She has experienced God's love despite the history that she had She could have easily said 'Well God doesn't love me because he let these bad things happen.' And that was part of her struggle But then she was able to see God's love through that give her life to to Jesus and trusted Jesus And now she had a chance to share her story at Celebrate Recovery We average about 70 people there per night And uh I'm telling you what she has a calling to preach and obviously we live in a in a culture still where women are told 'Well you can't do that.'" [00:07:39]

"So she has to figure that out somehow But it's okay to share her testimony right so we have her sharing her testimony and and God will will show her what to do because she basically she feels called to the ministry I'm sure the Lord's going to open the right doors for her Whether it's missions or something else God's going to do great things But please don't doubt Trust the Lord The second thing that I want you to leave with today is to be thankful for God's love and favor towards you Be fa be thankful for God's love and favor towards you." [00:08:19]

"God says to Israel 'I love you.' They respond 'Really how do you love us we got all this stuff going on.' Instead they should have said 'Well we are so thankful for your love Let's look around.' Right we just talked about some some things to be grateful for Salvation you know God's uh favor is a big thing here Look for God's favor in your life Take some time this week and write down maybe 10 things that you can be thankful for God And really try to go beyond the surface things Go deeper Go deeper than that." [00:08:56]

"I was in an accident Obviously my like many of you know my son passed away in that accident I have three children My middle child he was 13 years old He died And I had to look back at that and find something to be thankful for And I realized that I had to be thankful that God allowed me to continue to live That was tough I would have easily trained my life so that my son could have longer years here on earth But I had to be thankful I decided to be thankful that God allowed me to live just a little bit longer here on this earth." [00:09:36]

"Even though I kind of don't want to be thankful for that but I have to be thankful And I am thankful I got to be you here y'all in Arkansas you know So let's be thankful and look at the favor of God remember that uh in God's response to Israel when he talked about Esau and Jacob he was basically saying 'I show favor to the people I love.' And so maybe one question you have is 'Well is is is God showing me favor when I'm when I'm going through this particular trial and tribulation?' Sometimes remember that God disciplines us." [00:10:16]

"The scripture actually says that God disciplines those he loves And so let's look at circumstances even when they're negative and say 'God maybe you're trying to teach me a lesson through this I I I want to be thankful for this trial or for this lesson that I need to learn that Lord I just want to be thankful because I know you're you love me and you only have good towards me.' And believe that wholeheartedly because it is true If you're if you've experienced harassment whether at work or is that the same in some churches you know or perhaps in your in your family." [00:10:56]

"God can show you favor and he wants to show you favor Maybe you've experienced that favor because one of the clear ways to see God's favor is that you become free from harassment If you're feeling harassed maybe just from somewhere something somebody take the time to pray and say 'Lord I am feeling harassed I need to be free from this.' And watch how God answers that prayer if he hasn't already So God loves us God wants to show us favor And let's lean on that Let's believe that Be thankful for that The third thing I want you to remember is this idea of messenger." [00:11:36]

"Be a messenger for God decide today to be a messenger of God's love Remember that Malachi has this theme about him His very name says my messenger And he thinks in that that term this is pretty serious I got to share seven messages from God Today we looked at number one But uh I already in the introduction talked about how he saw other people as messengers Do you do you see yourself as a messenger do you see yourself as someone h that has that responsibility to share a message from God it can be very simple By the way I'll give you an example." [00:12:16]

"I called Door Dash this week when I was working in my office I was you know moving some stuff around as as many of you have seen and getting my my little space there already uh from my new pastor here And so I decided to call Door Dash I know some of you are judging me already and that's okay I love you anyway You're like Door Dash We live in in town here Everything's within 5 minutes or less You just drive But I was so wrapped up with what I was doing And and I got so many loose ends that you know from the transition moving here we still have to kind of wrap up some things." [00:12:56]

"There's just a lot And so I I decided you know what i'm just going to call Door Dash to bring me a I forgot what I ordered here but I ordered something from Door Dash And the Door Dash person came and dropped Lord for food and then she gave me this She was a messenger and she knew this was a church but she still gave me something about Jesus It said Facebook Jesus loves Russo I wonder if she's maybe started a page I'm going to have to find that By the way I talked about mission I I should say this Please be in prayer for this church." [00:13:36]